


show me the way

by kay_emm_gee



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death In Dream, F/M, Future Fic, Ghosts of Christmas, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:46:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5476919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_emm_gee/pseuds/kay_emm_gee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just as Clarke stepped under the shadow of the cliff, her boots crunching in the snow, she heard a crack, a rumble, a roar. A flash of white and her only thought was avalanche before the snow came down on her, burying her under its frigid, wet weight. </p>
<p>The pressure and the cold stole her breath, pinned her body in place, and it wasn’t long before her eyes fluttered shut. It was cold, and still, and quiet, and there was nothing else she could do.</p>
<p>“Get out of the fucking snow.”</p>
<p>Clarke blinked her eyes open, now on her back, and was greeted with Anya’s scowling face.</p>
<p>“You’re dead,” she stuttered in surprise.</p>
<p>“Observant as always, Skaikru.”</p>
<p>“I’m dead,” Clarke realized, her limbs going numb at the thought. Though it could be from the cold, but if she was dead, then would she even feel the cold? “I'm dead?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	show me the way

**Author's Note:**

> For legendofclarke on tumblr as part of the Bellarke Secret Santa exchange!
> 
> Officially inspired by It's a Wonderful Life, but if you haven't seen it, Ghost of Christmas Past from A Christmas Carol could also work as basis :) It's a little different, and a little big of a sad beginning for a SS exchange gift, but I really hope you like it!

Just as Clarke stepped under the shadow of the cliff, her boots crunching in the snow, she heard a crack, a rumble, a roar. A flash of white and her only thought was  _avalanche_  before the snow came down on her, burying her under its frigid, wet weight.

The pressure and the cold stole her breath, pinned her body in place, and it wasn’t long before her eyes fluttered shut. It was cold, and still, and quiet, and there was nothing else she could do.

* * *

 

“Get out of the fucking snow.”

Clarke blinked her eyes open, now on her back, and was greeted with Anya’s scowling face.

“You’re dead,” she stuttered in surprise.

“Observant as always, Skaikru.”

“I’m dead,” Clarke realized, her limbs going numb at the thought. Though it could be from the cold, but if she  _was_  dead, then would she even feel the cold? “I'm dead?”

Anya sighed heavily. “Just get out of the snow.”

By the time Clarke scrambled out of the snow pile, Anya had almost disappeared between the trees. Grimacing, Clarke jogged after her.

“What's going on?”

Anya just held up a hand and lazily waved her question off. Clarke didn't bother to ask again, just followed her as she continued to walk swiftly through the trees. She glanced at her companion several times as they continued to walk, but Anya gave nothing away.

“Too slow,” Anya finally grumbled and snapped her fingers.

The slate blue sky darkened immediately, and Clarke tensed as night fell over the silent forest. Anya just picked up her pace.

“Hurry, or we’ll miss it.”

Clarke was about to snap back a retort when shouts echoed through the trees. A flicker of torchlight caught her eye, and soon enough she was jogging ahead of Anya, inexplicably pulled to the gathering up ahead.

She gasped when she skidded through the trees and was faced with a familiar scene: a cliffside confrontation, Bellamy and Charlotte at the edge, Murphy and his cronies advancing on them. No one looked at her though, as if she weren’t there at all. Her shock doubled when she herself--younger, with a full belly, clean hands, and unbloodied soul--came bursting through the trees.

“Bellamy, stop!” Her earlier self screamed.

“What the hell?” She said now, whipping around to find Anya. Leaning up against a tree, the fallen warrior just looked at her with an unreadable expression and nodded as if to say:  _watch._

It was magnetic the way her eyes drifted back to the past scene. Murphy did what she remembered, grabbing her to him and holding a knife to her throat. She watched fear light up Finn’s eyes and anger etch into the lines on Bellamy’s face. She listened to Murphy tempt Charlotte, Bellamy try to save her, and Charlotte’s final words before she flung herself off the cliff.

Except this time Murphy didn't let the other Clarke go when she lurched forward in horror; he kept the knife right where it was, and it sliced right into her neck. She let out a strangled cry of surprise, hands flying to her own intact throat as she watched blood pour down that of her past self. Slumping to the ground, the dying Clarke twitched, gurgled, then went still.

The next few moments were a blur. Finn, Bellamy, and Murphy became a tangle of limbs, fists, blood, and shouts. His cronies dispersed, disappearing into the woods. Clarke felt Anya step up beside her and take a deep breath, and then Finn finally separated Bellamy from the now unmoving Murphy.

“Enough!” Finn screamed. “Enough. He’s done, he’s gone!”

The two boys scuffed a bit more, but finally Bellamy gave up, pushing away from Finn and swearing profusely.

“She’s--she’s dead,” Finn mumbled, kneeling by her glassy-eyed, blood-covered body. “We need to take her back to camp.”

When Bellamy didn’t say anything, his gaze finally resting on her dead body--so reluctantly, Clarke could see the pain and regret in his eyes--Finn snapped his head up. “We  _need_  to bring her back, Bellamy.”

He closed his eyes, then swallowed. “I know.”

Then without a word, he knelt down and scooped her up in his arms, grunting as he stood on shaking legs.

“I can help,” Finn blurted, but Bellamy just stepped away and hitched her closer.

In a dead voice, he announced, “I’ve got her.”

Then he walked into the trees with heavy steps. Finn glanced uneasily at Murphy’s body once more before also disappearing into the night.

“You can’t tell me you haven’t wondered,” Anya remarked curiously. “What it would be like.”

“You mean if  _Wanheda_  didn’t exist?” Clarke spat. “I haven’t wondered. I know. A hell of a lot of people would still be alive.”

Anya snorted. “You really haven’t changed, have you? Still think you know everything.”

Before Clarke could respond, the warrior had turned on her heel, calling over her shoulder, “Come on. It will be daylight soon.”

They walked for a while longer until Clarke started to recognize the trees as the ones near the dropship. When they entered the camp, the air was somber. Monty and Jasper had red-rimmed eyes, as did Octavia and a few other of the delinquents. Soon enough she figured out they’ve already buried her, were already halfway done mourning her. She didn’t mind. There wasn’t much room for grief on the ground; that she knew well.

“So what now?”

Anya sighed. “Watch.”

Clarke frowned but did as she asked. Nothing changed much. Raven still came down, delighted to be with Finn. Bellamy still stole and destroyed the radio. The flares still went up, and they still were too late. The hundreds of glittering streaks from burning bodies still appeared in the sky that night. Octavia still went missing, and Bellamy still rallied a group to go after her, including Finn, who still argued with Raven about fixing the radio in the meantime.

“Unless there’s a parts depot down here, we’re not talking to the Ark,” Raven still said, desperate for something, anything to fix.

Finn just stared at her, lost without an solution to give her, and Clarke felt the answer pushing up her throat.

“Art supply store,” she rasped, as she had before. This time, though, neither of them looked her way. “Art supply store!”

She yelled it at them as they kissed goodbye, but it did no good. The bunker didn’t occur to Finn, the only other person to know about the vital stash of supplies that was their only chance of fixing the radio and contacting the Ark. Instead, he trotted off with the rest, and Raven worriedly watched him go, with only Clarke realizing how screwed they really were.

Dread pooled in her stomach, turning to acid when the scouting group returned with Octavia but also with an injured and unconscious Finn. The hurricane still came, but without her and without the radio and Abby, there was no one to help them take the knife out of Finn. So it stayed in, and the poison worked faster than they could think, still in such close contact with the wound. Tears pricked Clarke’s eyes as she watched Raven watch Finn die, and guilt, even deeper than at the time, pricked her conscience as they tortured Lincoln.

_We were so blind_ , she thought bitterly, sadly as she watched Bellamy raise the belt again and again.  _So scared. So ignorant._

The night dragged on, but Octavia’s persistence won out over Bellamy’s anger, and eventually they left Lincoln alone though under heavy guard.

They had to bury another body, after all.

“He still died because of me,” Clarke breathed, pain shooting through her gut as if she had a knife lodged there too. “I wasn’t there, so he died.”

“Yes. It’s all your fault,” Anya deadpanned.

Clarke looked at her sharply, gaze narrowed.

Anya just rolled her eyes. “It’s like you  _want_  to be important,” she muttered.

“I’m just taking responsibility for my choices,” Clarke snapped.

“So you chose this? To have Murphy slice your neck open?”

“No.”

“Then stop sounding like you’ve eaten Jobi nuts.”

The reference jogged Clarke’s memory.

_Talking to Jaha. Recruiting Bellamy. Finding the guns, shooting, Bellamy’s hand on her shoulder. Hallucinating her father. Fighting Dax. Sitting by the tree, exhausted and bloody and dizzy and listening to Bellamy breathe. Being glad she wasn’t alone, that she wouldn’t be alone, because he was staying._

“They don’t know about the supply depot,” she blurted, clutching Anya’s arm. Her fingernails dug into her companion’s arm as the terrible realization took root; if there was no radio, then no information from Jaha. “No supply depot.” She swallowed thickly. “That means no guns.”

Anya paused. “Do you want to keep going?”

“Yes.” Her reply was faint, but her resolve was not. She needed to see this through.

“Alright, but I’ll cut you a break. Make it easy on you.” Anya snapped her fingers, and everything sped up. The camp was a blur around them, a smear of colors and motion as the circumstances deteriorated.

Without the threat of the Ark coming down, Bellamy stayed at the camp, but that also just meant more glittering streaks filled the sky as nights sped by in the space between Clarke’s breaths. Soon the streaks stopped, and the Ark lights blinked out and never came back on. Tears stained her cheeks--her mother dead, so many people dead. Her heart ached at the same guilt so clearly eating at Bellamy, whose pained gaze she managed to always glimpse without issue amongst the sea of the delinquents’ blurry faces. The camp tolerated him, because they needed him, but only Octavia looked at him with anything other than accusation.

The sickness also came, but sooner this time, as did the Grounder army. Unprepared and unarmed, the camp lost so many of their own--many more than the original battle Clarke had experienced--before shutting themselves in the dropship, fear pervading as the enemy tried to pry their way inside. Raven was still Raven though, and without her bullet injury, she was able to think clearly enough and come up with Clarke’s ring of fire plan all on her own. Pride and relief filled Clarke, but it all evaporated when Bellamy was the one this time to pull the lever and unveil the ashen destruction they had wrought.

“No,” she cried when the red smoke still came, bringing the Mountain Men with it. “Why can’t this be different too?”

Anya shrugged. “Like I said, you’re not that important.”

Bellamy was just as suspicious of the Mountain Men as she had been, and the delinquents still just as reluctant to admit their haven was more hell than heaven. He was more vocal about it than she had been though, more defiant, a rebellious voice that not even yards of earth and stone could silence, but it did no good.

“Shut up,” she yelled in his ear as he yet again argued with Wallace about why exactly the delinquents were held under such tight watch. She feared for him, and anger thrummed in her veins that she wasn’t there to help him. “Just shut up! Think it through!”

It was too late; she saw the condemnation in Wallace’s eyes as Bellamy threw up his hands and walked away. She could do nothing but watch with a heavy, bitter heart that night as the guards drugged him, dragged him into the cages, left him there.

Crouching in front of his prison, she gripped the bars, staring at his half-conscious figure. Her eyes ran over his disheveled hair, his freckles, the sharp planes of a face she knew better than her own by now.

“Fight,” she seethed. “Fight, Bellamy. You have to  _fight._ ”

Fight he did when the guard came to collect him for draining, and when he had won and found the same way out that she had--the disposal chute--Clarke looked to Anya, hope welling up inside her.

“He can’t hear you,” Anya sighed. “You know the rules by now. You had nothing to do with--”

“You don’t know that!”

“You’re not really here, Clarke! So it doesn’t matter. You can’t help him, not anymore.”

“It’s not fair!” She exploded, but then the alarm sounded, and with a cry, Bellamy dropped through the chute into the tunnels below.

Clarke tried to lurch forward, to go after him, but she was jerked backwards.

“You can’t follow,” Anya warned.

“Why not?” Clarke demanded through gritted teeth.

Infuriatingly, Anya just shrugged, and then they were back in the silent dormitory of sleeping delinquents.

“Bring me back to him,” Clarke hissed, sticking her face right in front of Anya’s.

The warrior raised her eyebrows and frowned. “Before this, you hadn’t seen him in months. You walked away. And after that avalanche, you might never see him again. Why do you care now?”

“I want to see him.”

“No.”

“I want to see him!” She screamed. “I need--”

“You need?”

“I need him,” Clarke breathed, stumbling away from Anya. Her arms wrapped around her middle, holding herself together, as if she could keep the pain and guilt and want and regret coiled in her stomach from pouring out. Instead, it spilled out her lips. “I  _need_  him, and I just walked away. I left him. I--”

A sob caught in her throat, and Anya began to look uncomfortable.

“I still can’t take you to him.”

“Then what can you do?” Clarke snapped, fighting tears.

“You’re not ready.”

“For what?”

Anya remained silent, contemplative, then sighed. “You’re not ready. So you’ll just have to watch.”

Clarke was just about to tell her how tired of watching she was when the warrior snapped her fingers and, as it had last time, their surroundings went into hyperdrive. She watched, finally privy to what seemed to have happened when she escaped the mountain: the false sense of security, Monty suspicious and condemning (though this time Octavia fought with him, frightened and angry over her brother’s absence), Cage overthrowing his father, the delinquents’ imprisonment and eventual use as human sacrifice.

“Stop,” Clarke screamed as they drilled into Harper. “Make it stop!”

“I can’t,” Anya said in a pained voice. “You chose to see it through. You have to now. There is no other choice.”

Hope and despair tightened around her chest in equal measure when she heard a whispered conversation in the hallways about TonDC and an alliance.

“Someone’s gathered the clans. They think they can beat us,” Emerson sneered, and Clarke just knew it was Bellamy responsible for that amassing of Grounder forces, because even though he was alone, as she had told him the first time:  _they’re willing to fight and die for you_. Maybe this time, with Clarke gone, Lexa had seen that in him instead.

“Then maybe it’s time to solve our little pest problem,” Cage agreed with a smirk. “We’ll be on the ground soon anyways. Clearing the way now will only make it easier when we’re finally ready.”

So the missile still launched, and TonDC still burned, though this time Clarke’s soul wasn’t stained with the guilt of letting it happen. Even so, grief ate at her.

“They still died,” she accused, glaring at Anya.

“Yes, they did.”

“What is the fucking point of this?” Clarke yelled in frustration.

“You know.”

“What? That I’m  _not_ responsible? It’s not my fault? That either way they die?”

“No. There is a version where they live.”

“Then what’s the  _point_?”

Anya parted her lips, but Clarke held up a hand, heading her off.

“I know, watch,” she mocked bitterly.

“I was actually going to say--”

“Just don’t.”

“Suit yourself.”

As soon as they started drilling more of her friends, Clarke wished she could take it back, wished that she had let Anya speak. She had made her choice though--so many choices, always her choices--and she could only watch as the bodies piled up.

It finally dawned on her, though, that one familiar face was missing.

“Monty. Where’s Monty?”

“Are you ready?”

“What?”

“I said, are you ready?”

“Just take me to him!”

Clarke watched Anya blink, and then they were in the control room. A sick feeling washed over her as she realized Bellamy was there too, dressed in Grounder war gear, blood smeared everywhere.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he gasped as Monty typed frantically at the keyboard. “The Grounder forces took heavy losses, both in the acid fog and forcing our way in through the tunnels. They’re stuck in the upper levels. Can you reverse the scrubbers?”

“I’m trying!” Monty replied, voice shaking.

“No pressure,” Bellamy coughed, then spun around when there was a muffled explosion behind the door. A few pounding thuds followed, and then the door flew open just as Bellamy drew a dagger from his belt.

“Keep trying!” He shouted at Monty before lunging at the invading Emerson.

Clarke watched in horror as they fought, Bellamy barely able to keep the guard away from the struggling Monty. Finally, when Monty’s eyes widened in terrible triumph, because he had done it, he turned, and Clarke did the same, only to have her heart stop as Emerson put a bullet in Bellamy’s chest.

He fell to the floor with a grunt and a thud, and Clarke cried out, falling with him as her heart shattered. She barely registered Monty slamming the lever down and condemning the mountain men to their fate, and the faint  _pop pop_ of Emerson’s gun and the quiet rustle as Monty fell too.

All Clarke could do was sob, and cry, and rage, because it was supposed to be  _better_ , they were supposed to  _live,_  and live without guilt, if she wasn’t there. It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

“Clarke.”

“Clarke.

“ _Clarke!_ ”

“What!” Clarke screamed at the top of her lungs as she whipped around to face Anya, eyes burning and chest heaving. “What do you want from me!”

Anya’s hands flew out, slamming into her shoulders so she landed flat on the ground with the warrior on top of her. Clarke reached up to push her way, pain and anger fueling her fingers as they searched for cloth or skin, any purchase to heave the weight of the past off of her. Anya , or the thing who had been pretending to be her, simply pinned her wrists to the ground, staring down at her with black, unblinking eyes and hollow cheeks, skin stretched too thin over sharp bone.

“Make a choice,” she taunted with bloody lips.

“They died!” Clarke hissed, struggling furiously even still. “There’s no one to watch anymore! You’re sick game is done.”

Anya’s grip grew tighter, cutting off her circulation. Her arms were numb, heavy, cold without blood flow.  “Make a choice.”

“There’s no way to save them!”

“Make a choice.” Anya’s weight bore down on her legs, causing them to lose feeling too, and then she started struggling to breathe.

“I want them to live,” she sobbed, tears blurring her vision. She could barely see the woman restraining her, just a blur of blinking eyes and brown-blonde hair above her. “I need them to live.”

“ _Make a choice._ ”

“I want to wake up,” she choked out with her last breath. “I want to live.”

_You’ve made your choice_ ,  _and your fight is not_   _over,_  she heard whispered in her ear--a relieved, almost proud sound--and then her vision went black.

* * *

 

Warmth and a light brush of dry fabric greeted Clarke when she finally came to. Not daring to open her eyes-- _was she still with Anya, or whatever that was_ \--she just breathed, enjoying the way her chest expanded without impediment. A soft mechanical hum filled her ears, as did the quiet murmurings of familiar voices.

“Abby.  _Abby._  She’s waking up.”

_Jackson_ , Clarke thought blearily.  _That’s Jackson._

“Clarke?”

The crack in her mother’s voice made her breathing catch, and she squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. If she opened them and this wasn’t real, she might not be able to handle the heartbreak, but if it was real, neither did she know if she was ready to face all that she had left behind.

“Just rest, baby, it’s fine.” Her mother’s hand squeezed hers, then let go, and Clarke almost, almost opened her eyes then, just to get her to stay. The pressure disappeared before she mustered her resolve though, and it was just easier to drift off into sleep again.

The second time she woke, she could tell it was night, and in the silence, she finally found the bravery to open her eyes. Shock rolled through her as she took in the medbay, refurbished and looking almost as good as it had when the Ark had been in space. No doubt her mother had needed a project in the months since she was gone.

_Hurry up and save the world_ , she thought wryly.

Groaning, she sat up, shaking off the many layers of blankets swaddled around her. As her thoughts cleared, she realized they must have found her in the snow, though who knows how. Maybe it was chance or fate; maybe she was just lucky.

She didn’t dwell on it too long though, because her aching muscles soon captured her full attention. It took her ages to stretch out the worst kinks, and even longer to gather the strength to stand. Given the darkness and silence that pervaded not just the medbay but the hall outside, it must be extremely late. Clarke wanted to take advantage of the time, needing to see the camp on her own without prying, worrying, angry, or mistrustful stares watching her the whole time.

Three times she had to stop from exhaustion as she slowly made her way through the deserted Ark, but by the time she reached the door to the outside, she could manage to hold herself up. Inhaling the sharp, winter air deeply, she stepped over the threshold. Moonlight shaded the yard in tones of gray and black, the only color being the bluish glow coming from the spotlights posted on the fence posts. She hobbled her way towards the gate, familiar panic rising in her chest. If she could just get out--

She halted when she saw a figure standing a few yards in front of her, to her right, back to. She saw the jacket, worn and torn, traced its seams as it fit over confidant shoulders and its collar brushed dark brown curls that had been cut recently.

“ _Bellamy_ ,” she breathed, barely audible to even her own ears.

Even so, he whipped around, gun swinging up to point straight at her. His eyes widened as their gazes connected, swearing as the rifle clattered to the ground.

“Jesus, Clarke,” he muttered. “You scared the shit out of me.”

She struggled to breathe as she took in his glittering eyes, the faint smattering of freckles that she couldn’t forget the pattern of, not even after months apart. There were some familiar scars, and some new ones, and regret flared inside of her that she didn’t know how they had gotten there. “Sorry.”

“What are you doing out of bed?”

“I just--”

“You were leaving.”

“No,” she whispered.

Bellamy sighed, closing his eyes. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Bellamy.”

Tears spilled over onto her cheeks when he finally looked at her again, his own expression falling as he took in her trembling frame.

“Shit, Clarke,” he muttered, immediately striding over. He wrapped his arms around her so tightly, exhaling as if in relief. She gripped the front of his shirt, like an anchor, wondering how she had ever walked away from the one person who had made her feel like she was home.

She shivered as his mouth pressed into the crook of her neck, and his grip on her tightened.

“You’re ice cold,” he murmured against her skin. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

She swallowed her real answer-- _looking for you_ \--because neither of them were ready for that yet. Instead, she breathed him in, pine and metal and sweat.

Soon though, too soon, he pulled away, shrugging off his jacket.

“I can’t take your jacket, you’ll freeze,” she protested weakly, but he just frowned at her as he draped it over her shoulders.

“My shift is almost over. I’ll be fine. But you need to go back inside, now.”

She pulled the coat around her, though she stayed put, mouth pursing stubbornly.

“ _Now,_  Clarke. We just got you back, so there’s no way you’re going to die from frostbite in our own damn front yard. Go, I’ll check on you when I’m done.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, because that sounded more like a threat than a promise. He just raised his eyebrows in challenge, and she sighed in defeat. Without a word, she turned, shuffling back to the Ark, only glancing behind her once in the doorway to see him standing in the distance, watching her.

When she crawled back into her hospital bed, she kept the jacket on, burrowing into it to absorb whatever of his warmth was left inside the fabric. For a moment, in that space between awake and asleep, she almost believed it was him wrapped around her instead, and a different kind of warmth shot through her, something that felt dangerously like peace.

* * *

 

It disappeared when she woke the next morning, because she was caught up in a whirlwind of reunions and hugs, medical exams and questions. Everything was a blur, and she couldn’t help looking around for Anya, half-expecting this to be another one of her tricks. It wasn’t though, and the way Bellamy avoided her gaze when she saw him next confirmed that. A hollowness carved itself out inside of her instead. Maybe she had been too naÏve, thinking one hug would put the past behind them.

For weeks, it went on like that, them dancing awkwardly around each other with Octavia sending her accusing glares and Raven glancing at her sympathetically.

“He’s not mad at you,” Monty promised repeatedly, no matter how many times she frowned doubtfully at him.

Finally she couldn’t take it anymore--and his jacket no longer smelled like him--so she talked David Miller into pairing her with Bellamy on a patrol mission. He scowled when she showed up at the gate, his jacket zipped tightly up under her chin and a rifle slung over her shoulder.

“Your mother didn’t clear you for patrol,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.

“My mother doesn’t have a say in what I do or don’t do. And neither do you. I’m your partner, take it or leave it. I’ll just go on my own if you stay here.”

Then she pushed past him out the gate, fighting a smile when she heard him huff in frustration and start to follow her. It was the last sound she heard from him other than the crunch of his boots in the snow. They checked traps and snares in silence, and the only thing that kept her from blurting out questions and accusations was the easy way they still worked in tandem. At least they still had that, the wordless seamlessness that had wormed its way into her mind and her heart since that night by the cliff, when she looked into his eyes and saw past the bravado and anger and saw the fear that burned in her own belly.

She was so used to that absence of noise that the sharp, shot-like crack that sounded behind her when they were crossing the iced-over river surprised her. Whirling around, she saw Bellamy plummet into the water below their feet.. A cry rose in her throat as she shucked off her gun and lunged towards the hole. Her hand barely managed to clamp on his wrist disappearing underneath the surface, and she gasped as the current threatened to drag her in too. Water lapped at her chest, freezing her breath in her lungs, and she felt the ice beneath her stomach wobble, but then Bellamy surged up with a gasp. She slid herself back, pulling him as he helped by gripping the ice to hoist himself out. When he collapsed next to her, he began shuddering violently from the wet chill. Fear gripped her as she rolled him onto his side, watching him cough up water.

“Bellamy,” she called frantically, brushing slush from his cheeks. “Bellamy, look at me.”

He couldn't, though. All he could seem to do was squeeze his eyes shut and curl in on himself against the cold.

“You have to get up,” she pleaded, cupping his face. “Please. We need to find shelter.”

Bellamy just shook his head and tried to speak through blue lips. Then he seemed to collapse onto the ice, still shivering.

“No,” Clarke shouted stubbornly. She shook his shoulders, angry and determined. “Wake up right now. You're not dying on me. You're not dying on me! Not again.”

She choked on the last words. Panicking, she plastered her palms against his cheek, trying to bring him back to her. After a few pinches, his eyes fluttered open again.

“You can’t leave us,” Clarke sobbed. “Your sister, our people. Me. So get up. Just walk. Come on.”

It took him a minute, and they both nearly fell when he struggled to stand, but she got him up, half hung over her because his limbs were shaking so badly that he couldn’t walk on his own. As fast as she could manage, she walked them off the river, stumbling through the snow until she finally recognized where they were.

“Not much farther,” she murmured, and he shivered brutally in response.

When they reached the bunker that had saved her life more times than she could count earlier this season, he was awake and mobile enough to descend the ladder. She still had to help him strip out of his soaked clothes, however, her own stiff fingers struggling with the zippers and buttons.

“Get under the covers,” she ordered once he was undressed, nodding towards the small twin bed. As he did so, she began shrugging out of her own damp things. Body heat was the only thing that would help him now, though she did keep her underthings on. They were still dry, and besides, her cheeks flushed at the thought of going without them.

“What are you doing?” He chattered at her as she slid under the covers.

Pushing him away, all she said was, “Turn over.”

He listened, and instinctively he curled in on himself, knees up to his chest, keeping his slowly returning body heat contained. Fitting herself around him, she plastered herself against his back, slipping her arm around this middle. His cold skin brushed against and away from hers rapidly as he continued to shiver, and she pressed her palm against his bare stomach, wishing she could ease his trembling muscles.

“Shit,” he hissed. “I’m so fucking cold.”

“I know,” she murmured against his shoulder blade. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’ll pass.”

It took him a few starts to respond, because his shivers made it hard for him to talk. “What are you sorry for?”

She didn’t know, but the image of him in the control room, facing Emerson overwhelmed her. Clarke closed her eyes, but she still saw the gun raised, heard the bullet hit flesh, felt her throat close up because blood was spilling down his chest as he fell to the control room floor.

“I can’t lose you again,” she whispered, cursing the tears welling up in her eyes and dropping onto his back. “I can’t.”

He made a questioning sound and started to turn over, but Clarke stopped him by sliding her hand up to rest over his heart. Its beat was slow, sluggish, and she rubbed her fingers over his skin, willing it to regain its strength. Hesitantly, his hand reached up and lay over hers, callouses on his palm rubbing roughly against her sharp, dry knuckles. Slowly his fingers slid into the spaces between hers, cold and thick. She exhaled deeply at the sensation, and a tremor ran through him that the selfish, greedy part of her hoped had nothing to do with the chills racking his frame.

“Just rest,” she murmured against the base of his neck. “Just get better.”

He made an agreeing sigh, and his hand clenched over hers as another violent shiver ran through him. It took a while for them to stop, and even longer for his pulse to reach a normal rhythm and his breathing to even out. After that, and Clarke being certain that he was out of any real danger, he drifted off, but she didn’t follow until long after, when the sunlight peaking through the cracks in the bunker door had disappeared completely.

When she woke, she was surrounded by heat and skin. Bellamy had turned over in the night and wrapped himself around her. She was tucked into his chest, every curve of hers accommodated perfectly by every line of his. Clarke froze, then melted into him, not caring if he was awake, not caring if her cheeks flamed red from embarrassment at enjoying the closeness, because if she could steal this one little moment with him--if this was all she could get--then she was going to take it.

Her stomach fluttered when his hands slide against her back, slowly but intentionally. Not daring to look up, she pressed her nose into his chest, now warm and still. His fingers played with the bumps of her spine, the ridges of her ribs, fingers spreading and searching as if he were mapping her every inch.

“What did you mean,” he murmured. “That you couldn’t lose me again? That I couldn’t die on you again?”

She inhaled deeply, squeezing her eyes shut. How she would even begin to explain herself, she didn’t know, so she chose to burrow further into his embrace instead. As hiding places went, it wasn’t a bad one.

“Clarke?”

He said her name with such uncertainty, with such wariness, that she couldn’t help but look up. Her breath hitched when their gazes connected, because the confusion in his eyes made the questions in her heart double, too many to be contained in such a small space.

“I--I dreamed. That you died, in the mountain,” she finally managed. It was as close to the alternate reality truth of her near-death experience as she dared get. “And it was horrible. I couldn’t--seeing you like that, with a bullet in your chest--you can’t leave. Not ever. And I can’t go--I won’t leave, not again, because...I need you. I--”

Sucking in an unsteady breath, her fingers curled against his chest, as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to get a good grip on him. She couldn’t even get a good grip on the words that were supposed to come next, words that would be both dangerous and wonderful for them to hear. In the suspended pause, Bellamy breathed her name, fingers gently brushing stray curls away from her face. Her lips parted, and his chin dropped, their noses brushed, and then they heard the voices.

Muffled, frantic calls--she thought she heard Miller--echoed through the earth and metal burying them. A beat passed, and another, and then Bellamy was moving away, rolling onto his back with a sigh.

“How long have we been gone?” He groaned, sitting up.

Clarke stared at the expanse of his back, the one she had cried on, held close to her heart only hours ago. “Almost a full day,” she rasped.

“Shit. Octavia’s probably going out of her mind.”

“My mother’s not going to let me out of her sight again,” Clarke sighed resignedly.

“And whose fault is that?”

“You should’ve watched where you were stepping. Then we’d be at home with no one the wiser by now,” she shot back without any real malice, tugging on her pants.

Bellamy huffed, and she almost heard the reluctant smile that no doubt accompanied the sound. They didn’t say anything else as they finished dressing, though Bellamy grunted unhappily a few times, no doubt because his clothes weren’t completely dry.

When she turned around, however, he only looked determined as he asked, “Ready to face them?”

She nodded and followed him up the ladder into the sunny morning outside, though she couldn’t help throwing one last look back at the mess of sheets and blankets on the bed, a reminder of how close she had been to telling him that she didn’t  _just_  need him.

* * *

 

Being at camp slowly got better. Bellamy could look at her now, smile at her now, joke with her now. Octavia stopped scowling whenever she walked by, and one night after both of them had had too much moonshine, the younger Blake even thanked her, in a low voice, for saving Bellamy on the ice.

“He needs you,” she said with a wry twist to her lips. “I know that, have known it for a while, but--we’ve never been very good at letting the other be needed by someone else.”

“He doesn’t--”

“He does.”

Clarke opened her mouth to protest again, but Octavia just snorted, clinked their cups together, and downed hers as she walked away. Taking another sip of her own, Clarke stared into the fire at her feet, trying not to let Octavia’s words give her hope. It was too much, after everything, after all this time, after being a breath away from  _almost_  last week.

_I need you._

_I can’t lose you too._

_You’re not dying on me. Not again._

She had said it, how she felt, so many times, never how she exactly meant it, maybe when she hadn’t understood it entirely herself, but she had said it, and he never had, and she couldn’t trust that he would. She had been the one to walk away, after all, even though she was back now and staying put. She couldn’t ask that much trust of him, not now, not even after last week.

When her cup was empty, she stood and crossed the yard, trying to shake off her morose thoughts. From across the way at another fire, the sound of laughter--a fragile but precious noise--buoyed her up, because she heard Monty’s chuckle and Miller’s guffaw and Raven’s cackle, and each note was a bright spot blotting out the darkness that always lurked at the edges of their lives. The corners of her mouth tugged up, and she was smiling by the time she felt the first damp brushes of snow catch on her eyelashes.

Resounding whoops sounded through the yard, because snow was still a novelty down here, and tonight the moonshine was softening its harsher side. The flakes fell gently down, and Clarke could see hands being raised and tongues stuck out to catch them, by adults and children alike, because in this moment, they were all young and innocent, suspended in flash of time by joy and wonder.

A laugh escaped through her smiling lips, bubbling up with uncontrollable mirth, and that was when she felt his eyes on her. Turning her head to the right, she saw Bellamy standing a few yards away, absently holding a cup at his side and looking at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. She swallowed, resisting the urge to duck her head, and let out another laugh, smile turning sweeter despite the anxious flush rising on her cheeks. His lips parted and in the next beat, he had handed his cup off to Harper and was striding towards her, determination and heat and a promise in his eyes.

Every knot in her loosened, and nothing could have moved her from her spot at that moment, because she knew now. He didn’t have to say it out loud, that he needed her, that he couldn’t lose her, that he  _loved_  her, because he said it with his eyes every time. She just hadn’t been looking hard enough before.

She giggled just as he reached her, nervous and happy, and he grinned as his arms slid around her, tight and safe. With quick movements, he dipped her down to the side, so that he was the only thing holding her up. (He was always the only thing holding her up, holding her together, holding her down when it felt like gravity itself had disappeared, always her anchor and the one person she could never quite let go of, her center even when it felt like the earth itself was spinning off its axis). Then his mouth was on hers, sweeping her into a kiss that sent heat straight to her core, then spread outwards, filling her with a warm bubbly feeling. When his tongue ran across the crease of her lips, she let him in, let him consume her just as eagerly as she tasted him. Bellamy surrounded her, filled her, held her in his large, calloused hands so securely even as her heart swooped from their freefall into passion. Her arms latched around his neck, not letting him move away even as they both ran out of breath. Vaguely she heard cheers in the distance, but it was drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in her ears from her racing pulse, and, oddly, the distant, clear sound of bells and a rough, ghostly female laugh.

When he finally righted her, Clarke smiled against his mouth, not wanting to move away even now, even knowing he was hers to keep.

“That was the moment? Really?” She teased, shivering not from the cold but from the way his hands--large and warm and steady--squeezed her hips.

Bellamy shrugged, still grinning. “Timing’s never been my strong suit.”

She huffed, then burrowed her face in his chest, wanting to stay in this moment just a bit longer before the dozens of people watching them approached. The way his hand cupped the back of her head told her he wanted the same, and she smiled against his coat--which was definitely going to steal again, because it smelled like him again--as Bellamy pressed a kiss to her hair.

She heard the whoops and cheers grow louder, and suddenly, she needed to see him one more time, when it was just the two of them. So Clarke tipped her head up, resting her chin on his chest. He looked down at her, happy and a little bit dazed, mouth swollen, cheeks red, and dark hair dotted with pale frozen flakes.

“You ready to figure this out?” She asked.

Bellamy smiled, eyes dancing in challenge. “As long as you are.”

She nodded happily as the snow fell down around them and kissed him again, realizing she was more than ready, because they were together.


End file.
